In 2009 RuneScape had ~200,000 daily players. WoW had ~5.5 million.
Current estimates are RuneScape at ~150,000 and I’m being generous. WoW is at ~1.1 million.
I don’t like WoW either, but it’s the king for a reason.
That reason is they paid addiction specialists to tune drop rates and combat to make children addicted to their product.
I’m not sure it’s really the same kind of thing. I’d argue anyone who is genuinely interested in an MMO would like a different game better. RuneScape has more in common with an AOL chatroom or text based game than a moden MMO even by the standards for an MMO way back when.
Other games wish they were WOW and WOW is a bad game imo.
The War of Emperium concept is easily one of my top 5 greatest game features. Probably #1 or #2. Such a blowout cool idea especially for it’s time.